


we got our whole lives in front of us, in front of a bar

by tenthousandfireflies



Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: M/M, elia is bi and full of doubts, he and filippo hook up but they don't put a label to it so he stresses out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 13:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17788358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenthousandfireflies/pseuds/tenthousandfireflies
Summary: “So” Filippo's face comes closer to his and Elia's heart skips a beat. “Are you gay?”Elia is taken aback and doesn't know what to reply. "What?"“Listen, a straight guy would have run away by now." Filippo stares at him. "Or he would have spit on my face for having tried to flirt with him."





	1. cold hands

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [abbiamo tutta la vita davanti, si davanti ad un bar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17787929) by [tenthousandfireflies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenthousandfireflies/pseuds/tenthousandfireflies). 



> This is a translation from Italian of a fic I wrote. Unlike the original fic, this translation will be posted in short chapters that will be uploaded as soon as I will finish tranlsating them. It shouldn't take too long but I'm starting school in two days and I know myself so I won't promise you guys anything, sorry.  
> The title is A rough translation of the original which is the lyrics of a song called 'Tutta la vita' by Italian singer.songwriter Gazzelle.

“So” Filippo's face comes closer to his and Elia's heart skips a beat. “Are you gay?”  
Elia is taken aback and doesn't know what to reply. "What?"

  
“Listen, a straight guy would have run away by now." Filippo stares at him. "Or he would have spit on my face for having tried to flirt with him."

“Are you flirting with me?” He finds the courage to ask.

Filippo lifts an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

Elia swallows. The hands gripping the railing stopped picking up the cold, with his agitation he has warmed the metal and Elia wonders briefly what would happen if he let himself fall backwards instead of forwards, into Filippo’s eyes.

“I don’t know how guys flirt, so I am a bit lost.” Elia exhales. An answer that’s not really and answer. An answer you give when you’re not brave. Elia is afraid of jumping, like a kid who doesn’t get into the water without water wings.

Filippo laughs and takes a drag from the cigarette he’s holding in between his fingers. Elia is sure that the boy’s fingers and his hands must be cold. Just like his own before Filippo came up to him, the polar opposite of the temperature they are now.

“Lucky you.” Filippo exhales the smoke in the air in front of them and stares somewhere in front of himself. Elia suddenly feels empty and like there’s a fire inside of him. He understands that he doesn’t want the conversation to end, he want the attention back on himself and in the small corner of universe he managed to create with Filippo.

“Why lucky?” he asks with a little quicker than he would have liked. Filippo turns to look at him and Elia feels at ease once again. He feels at ease meaning his heart is still beating really fast but this time it’s for the right reasons. He feels at ease because the connection that he felt before didn’t disappear into the night along the dark street.

“Because boys are assholes.” Elia stares at him. Filippo throws his cigarette on the ground and steps on hit with his foot. “If you’re for real straight it’s better that way, believe me.”

Filippo smiles at him and Elia is at loos of words. He has already avoided answering the question once, he really doesn’t know if he can he do it another time. He brings a hand behind his neck and his face twists up into a grimace. He feels Filippo’s eyes on him and his heart beating really fast Is he really about to sort of coming out in which he says that he has no idea what he is about? Because it is true that he’s always liked girls, but at the same time, in the past few years he noticed that boys didn’t leave him unaffected either. _Especially if they stare at me and make me feel like you do. Why the fuck is life so hard?_

Before Elia is obliged to finally answer the question Filippo anticipates him.

“You’re bi maybe?” He asks as if it’s nothing and Elia feels like crying.

“Mmh.” Is all he manages to get out.

“Or are you confused? There’s nothing wrong in not knowing exactly where you stand and what you feel, we’ve all been there.” Filippo lies a hand on his arm. _I do know where I stand, I am here with you and I would like to stay here all night long._

Fuck it. Elia takes a long breath as he decides that maybe it is worth it to jump without water wings, at least this time.

“I wouldn’t say I am confused.” He turns towards Filippo with a smile shadowed by the fear that the boy instilled in him. “After all, I am here tonight, no?” He smiles lifting up his eyebrows, trying to dissipate his wrinkled forehead’s anxiety. _Shit, how do you flirt?_ His brain has shut down and he stopped knowing how to act. _Shit!_

“Right, that’s why I dared to tried to flirt with you.” Filippo turns with a small smile. “But… you can never be sure.”

“You can’t?”

“Nope.” Filippo full on laughs this time. “Once I met a mutual friend of ours in the gay street and not only they tried to lecture me on ‘you gays’, but he also threw up in front of me when I showed him this random guy’s Grinder profile.”

“Was it Martino?”

“Yes”.

Elia doesn’t know if Filippo is telling him all of this to try and lift some weight from the whole coming out thing or if it is to throw some shade at Martino, either way he’s grateful for the distraction that allows him to relax his shoulder and breathe a bit better.

“Anyway, with Marti you had guessed right.” _And with me as well._

“True, but the fact that he was in the gay street didn’t automatically make him eligible.” Filippo stops talking for a little while. “From this the deduction that you being here does not necessarily mean I can try to pick you up.”

Elia feels his heart beating in his chest, right under his shirt, in his throat, in his head.

“Because you think I’m too drunk or because I am not your type?” He manages to say.

“One of the two.”

“So you’re not telling me which one?”

“I’m letting you guess.” Filippo’s shoe lightly taps his own and his arm comes closer to Elia’s. Elia swallows.

“I only drank one drink tonight.” He’s uncovering all his carts, now it’s Filippo’s turn to make the next move.

Elia feels Filippo’s hand running along his arm, up to his shoulder where it stops for a little while before starting again and stopping on his cheeck.  Filippo now stands in front of him and Elia can’t stop staring at him, can’t stop staring into his eyes as the boy gets closer and closer.

“That’s good. Because you’re definitely my type.” In Filippo’s eyes Elia reads a ‘can I?’ that’s almost unnecessary, seeing as he’s dying to close the space between them. He nods and Filippo’s lips are on his own, light and cold.

Elia can only breathe Filippo and the night and his willingness to let go and just _live_ the moment with all of himself.

All the worries he had nourished until that moment evaporate into the dark when he realizes that his body knows exactly how to answer the kiss. His hands unclench from the railing and go to encircle Filippo’s hips and Elia kisses the boy back.

 


	2. help me find the words to say

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't translate 'a zozzoni' because I'm sure you know it by now and it is not translatable anyway asbjfhlhaksjd. The book that Marti brings to Giovanni is a classic in Italian literature which means everybody has to read it sooner or later during their school years (sometimes even two times sigh).

The first thing that Elia sees when he wakes up is not as much a thing, as a thought that suddenly comes to him as he’s still laying on his bed with his eyes closed. It’s a snapshot of eyes looking into his own, getting closer and then the darkness of a kiss given with closed eyes.

_I kissed Filippo._

Elia’s eyes snap wide open. _I really kissed Filippo._ He rubs a hand on his face and then turns to suffocate his face in his pillow. Elia inhales and the smell of the detergent fills his senses, stunting him for a little while. Exactly like last night’s kiss had stunted him.

_What the fuck do I do now?_

Elia grabs his phone from the bedside table. It is past 11:30 and the light filtering through the window confirms that the sun is already high up in the sky. On the phone’s screen there are three notifications from WhatsApp and two from Instagram.

 

Filippo Sava started following you.

Filippo Sava liked your post.

Marti: bro where the fuck did you go last night?

Gio: can you still come around to bring me the betrothed today?

Marti: btw you missed the Argentina and gio making out session that lasted all night, so maybe it was for the better that you disappeared

 

Elia grunts a second time. It is not news to find out that Giovanni and the Argentina made out all night, but he’s ready to bet that Martino and Niccolò had done the same, if what he had been able to see during the first minutes at the party was of any indication of how the rest of the night had gone. Which had been exactly one of the reasons that had pushed him to go outside on the street and start walking towards a bar he had picked out randomly. _Reaaaally_ randomly. So randomly that Elia had understood from the first moment he had laid eyes on the people flooding the street outside the pub that 1. They all were men and 2. Many of them were hugging each other, hands intertwined or lying on each other shoulders, some were kissing, some other were screaming words that echoed in the night and could be heard above the faint pulsing of the music coming out of the bar.

The steps that Elia had taken towards the bar from the second that he had understood that it was a gay bar had been deliberate, although unsure and a little bit scared. But from the time that he had spotted the bar, Elia had felt the need to go there, to answer a question that had been jumping around in his brain, tiring him for some time now. Or maybe not to answer it, at least not consciously, but surely to get closer to the answer.

Luckily Filippo had come out to smoke a cigarette only moments after Elia’s feet had stopped in front of the club, because Elia wasn’t sure that he could have stood there for a while longer before he would have gone back to his friends at the party.

Filippo had lighted up a cigarette some meters away from him and Elia had seen the boy’s face change when Filippo had noticed him, after only two drags from his cigarette. Filippo had probably turned to look at the dark corner of the street where Elia was standing because he had felt Elia’s eyes burning a hole on his face. Elia had not been able to stop staring at him since he had seen him exit the bar, his eyes fixed on Filippo’s white head like on a buoy in the middle of the ocean. The boy looked at ease amongst the other boys and men pouring out in the street, clearly in peace with himself amongst them, but alone in his cut-out of street from which his cigarette’s smoke raised up to the black sky. When he had lifted his eyes and crossed Elia’s stare, the surprise on his face had been quickly replaced by a smile and he had come to him.

“Hey.” He had extended his hand and Elia had clumsily retracted his own from the anchor-railing to shake hands with him. A gesture that was maybe a little bit too formal but that didn’t ring false. Elia had perceived it as in harmony with the rest of the evening. “You’re Marti’s friend, right?” From there the conversation had kicked off and Filippo had invited him to go inside with him. “It’s a bit cold here, are you coming in?” he had looked at Elia tentatively but sure of having asked the right question and Elia had nodded.

The club wasn’t very spacious and the music wasn’t his favourite, but everything else, from the décor to the bodies crammed on the dance floor, seemed incredible in Elia’s eyes.

 

Elia shakes himself from his thoughts and forces himself to throw his legs out of the bed. If he doesn’t stand up immediately he will never get the book to Giovanni. It’s an annotated book that he got from some clever boy who had the same teacher as them the year before.

 

A quarter of hour after having finally dragged himself out of the bed Elia steps outside his house and starts walking towards the bus stop, still fuzzy from the sleep he didn’t manage to shake off of him and the head full of thoughts about the night before.

When he gets to Giovanni’s house he rings the doorbell and a curly head appears to let him in.

“It took you some time bro. Come on in.” Giovanni pats him on the shoulder and drags him inside.

“I’m sorry bro, it’s just that I only woke up half a hour ago.”

“And what would your excuse for that be since you weren’t even to the party with us? Where the fuck did you go?”

Elia laughs an awkward laugh. Telling the truth or lying?  His first instinct is that of lying but he knows very well that it would not be helpful, not with Giovanni who’s his best friend, and especially not when he needs to talk to somebody.

He smooths his hairs with his hand to gain some time and hands the book to Giovanni before he flops on his friend’s couch.

“I was… taking a walk outside.” _Jesus Christ just tell him already._ But Elia can’t find the words, can’t find a way to get them out so that they make sense, so that they won’t sound off-key and so that they will sound natural on his lips and good to Giovanni’s hears.

“Mh.” Giovanni nods and sits down beside him, placing the book on the glass table next to the couch. Elia knows very well his friend’s ‘mh’, made to encourage him to go on and let him know that he’s listening. Giovanni is also known for being the best friend to listen to your stories in their friend group and Elia has never been let down after having told him something he didn’t want other people to know.

He takes a second to breathe and realizes that without meaning to he took a pillow-cover into his hands and he’s now nervously playing with it.

“I met Filippo.” Elia stares at his shoes that are sinking into the white carpet. Maybe he should have taken them off when he got into the house but now it’s too late. It’s too late to go back now.

“Filippo as in Marti’s friend?” Giovanni asks him and Elia is not entirely sure but he thinks that he spots a light turning on like a lightbulb in his friend’s eyes. “Eleonora’s brother?”

“Yes.” At this point he feels like he’s telling a story whose contents are already known by Giovanni more than making a confession.

“Okay.”

Elia finally dares to pull away his eyes from the carpet he’s dirtying with his shoes and as he lifts them he sees that Giovanni is staring at him.

“And?” Giovanni asks calmly as he slightly nods and Elia feels overcome by a wave of gratitude for his best friend.

He keeps silent and turns his eyes away. _How do I go on?_

“Eli.” Giovanni’s calm tone makes him lift his eyes again. The question ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ is lightly hanging in the air. Calm, it waits an answer without being intrusive. Elia knows he can trust Gio but it is not easy to voice experiences that make you feel in ways you didn’t expect and thoughts that you never thought about saying out loud. So he takes time, tries to stall, to let his friend guess, hoping he will come to his rescue.

“We were outside this bar, then we went inside and danced for a while. There were some of his friends- or well, some people he knew -I don’t really know -who left after a while. After a while when it was just us we went outside and he – Filippo told me that he was trying to pick me up and-“ Elia stops mid-sentence, he doesn’t know how to go on and which words to use. Giovanni is always looking at him with his kind eyes and his patient look and Elia only wishes for him to help him out, saying what they both already know, but that he doesn’t know how to articulate.

“Do you like him?” Giovanni finally asks.

Elia releases a breath he feels like he had been holding since he woke up that morning.

“Well…I don’t know. I mean, what do I know bro? I haven’t known him for a long time. And we only kissed for a little while…”

“Oh, so you even made out! A zozzoni!” Giovanni throws a pillow on his tight but lightly, as he smiles a big smile that rubs off on Elia. With a smile on his face Elia answers the pillow-attack with his own, coming both from relief and happiness from having shared the secret with his friend.

“Yep, but don’t go around telling people about it.” Elia becomes serious again, the worried look he throws Giovanni’s way is immediately captured by the friend who pats jim on the shoulder.

“Who do you take me for?”

“Thanks2 Elia smiles once again. “I needed to talk to somebody.”

“And obviously you too decided to come to me first.”

“What do you mean?”

“Who do you think Martino told first?” Giovanni says as he stands up, “Apparently I am the confessor for all you…gays?” he finishes hesitantly.

“I’d rather say…bisexual.” And finally, saying it out loud makes him feel good. The word sounds right in his mouth, for the first time ever, maybe thanks to the gift given to him by Filippo the night before, the first person who had labelled him as such. “I’ve always liked girls, really, I’m not just saying that to save my ass or something.”

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to justify yourself to me bro. I am happy you told me. Do you want to drink something?”

“Yes thanks, a glass of water is fine.” Elia stands up and joins the friend by the kitchen isle where the friend’s filling a glass for himself and one for him.

“By the way I don’t know if you want to, but if you ever need any advice I’d suggest you to speak with Martino. He’s the one who knows Filippo the best.”

Elia nods and silently thanks the universe once again for having given him a friend like Gio.

He ends up staying for lunch and spending the rest of the afternoon laying on the friend’s couch, talking about Filippo, school and family and playing Fifa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently people can't come out to Giovanni unless they're sitting on a couch.


	3. head in the clouds

It always happens at night, in a bar, in the hallway of the apartment that for a night turns into the place to be at for teenagers drunk on alcohol and music, during moments stolen from the rest of the world. It happens, and every time it happens Elia asks himself until when it can go on. When will Filippo find a boy he really likes and come to him to tell him ‘It was nice until it lasted but I don’t need you anymore’? because Elia knows it’s not about _if_ Filippo will find another boy but of _when_ it will happen. Call him disenchanted and pessimist all you want, but Elia really can’t see himself as ‘Filippo’s boyfriend. Yes _that_ Filippo’.

How could he not idealize him when all he gets from the boy are more than positive emotions that lift him so high that Elia feels his feet become detached from the ground, feels like he’s able to walk some feet from the sidewalk with his head high in the clouds. Maybe it’s because his heart becomes so full during the brief but intense moments that he gets to spend with Filippo, that Elia starts to float in the air and doesn’t hear the questions that his friends ask him from where he’s lost between the clouds.

“Eli?!” A shove on his shoulder brings him back to reality.

“What?” Elia turns towards Luchino who hits him lightly on his cheek.

“They were telling me of that Easter at the lake, when you reached them there and fucked up Gio and Eva’s plans to fuck.” Luchino stops and this time he hits Elia’s cheek a little harder. “What the fuck are you thinking about bro?”

Elia realizes that probably his vacant look is a clear clue about how little attention he’s paying to his friend. “Luchi, don’t take it personally, he’s probably thinking about his maths homework.” Giovanni comes to his rescue, with his carefully crafted indifference that would trick even the best detective into thinking that everything’s normal and that saved Elia’s ass more than once in the past few days.

“Yes, I’m shitting myself about math, sorry if I didn’t listen to you. Dude, I still need to understand so many stuff before the test and at the moment things aren’t looking good.”

Luchino seems to have forgot about what he was talking about at the word ‘test’ that sends him in a spiral of ‘wait dude, when the fuck is this exam supposed to take place?’ and ‘what do you mean next Monday??? Wasn’t it the week after? Oh shit I’m fucked’ and Elia turns to Giovanni. _Thanks_ he tries to tell him telepathically with a look. Giovanni answers him with a _No problem_ but Elia sees his forehead creasing and Giovanni nods at him like ‘I want to talk to you later’ and Elia knows he hasn’t got any good excuse to get out of it. Meanwhile Martino is standing a little apart from them, watching everything with an unbreakable look on his face, a look that Elia tries to read without succeeding.

“Let’s go Luchì.” Elia watches Marti lightly drag Luca towards himself and away from Elia, “I can help you get over your notes for a little while before biology if you want.”

With a “You’re saving my life bro.” Luca lets himself be dragged away and Elia remains alone with Giovanni in the schoolyard.

“So?” Giovanni turns towards him with a curious look and his hands together in a ‘what the fuck is going on?’ gesture.

“What’s going on? Those past weeks you’ve been unreachable, lost in thoughts. Do you want to tell me what’s happening?  Is this about Filippo?”

Elia sighs. Clearly Giovanni managed to hit the target with his intuition.

“You saw each other again, no?” Giovanni looks worried and Elia feels bothered in a way he knows he doesn’t have the right to be. Why does Giovanni always have to psychoanalyse him?  Can’t he leave him alone with his thoughts for once?

“Bro what do you want me to tell you? I’m moody because of school stuff, there isn’t always a deeper reason you know?” Elia feels Giovanni’s look scalp him alive to get to his soul to read it. He doesn’t understand why he’s feeling so mad about the questions of the well-meaning questions of the friend, but he knows that this time he’s not going to give in _. I have the right to my secrets and if I want to suffer I can suffer and be mad without having to justify myself fuck._

“I don’t know what’s going on in your head Eli, I was just trying to help you.” Giovanni’s voice is resigned and his tone let’s through a bit of disappointment that the boy doesn’t try to hide. “If you don’t want to talk to me then try talking to Martino. Or anybody else. But don’t come to me telling me you’ve been living in a parallel world, lost in our thoughts, for two weeks without any reason.” Elia sighs and he would like to answer but before he can do it Giovanni is readjusting the backpack on his shoulder and starts walking towards the school’s building. “I’m going now, see you later.”

Elia stands still in the courtyard, thinking about the ways in which this ‘thing’ with Filippo changed his life. Giovanni is right, since some weeks he can’t think about anything else and because of that he’s missing out on what’s happening around him and to his friends. He also thinks about how he really doesn’t know how to fucking stop thinking about the situation. Because the thought is a constant in his mind, and Filippo a presence that stays there in his mind every moment of the day. Because that’s what happens whit idols, you create them and you keep them alive constantly in your head so that they can guide you and judge your every day’s life. You cut out some time to idolize them and to think about how great they are, in comparison to your ordinary life, in comparison to your smallness.

Elia knows he can have Filippo for some dark minute at a party, but what would happen if they met during the day under the sunlight and the small details about their lives were to be revealed?  Elia is sure that he would never be enough. Interesting enough, brave enough, casual enough, enviable enough, complete enough, to be able to mean something to Filippo on the long run. And for this reason, he holds on to the stolen moments he gets with him and to the memories of these nights that he plays back in his head during the day. Because he’s unable to tackle the thought that sometimes, sooner or later, this _thing_ between them is destined to end, when Filippo will decide that he’s not enough and go on with his life, with another boy.


	4. in fear of losing you

Filippo’s hand is in his hair and Elia feels his warm breath on his neck, sweaty from spending two hours dancing on the gay bar’s dancefloor. The music that pulses all around him is muffled in his hears and in his chest the bass’ vibrations keep company to his out-of-control heartbeat. He doesn’t know for how long he’s going to be able to stand before his legs will give out and his body will deflate on the ground, ready to be stepped on by thousand feet belonging to five hundred dancing bodies that frame him and Filippo’s private dance.

Filippo nips at his lobe and Elia swears he can feel the floor fall down under his shoes. A low whine escapes his lips and his eyes roll back hidden under his eyelids.

 _Stop or I will explode._ Although his whole body would just stick to the other boy’s, fusing with it and feel what it means to be alive _with_ another person, Elia collects all the self-control he can muster up and detaches his chest from Filippo’s.

Just that little bit he needs to regain a bit of demeanour and to get back to feel the world outside of the tiny bubble that they have created in the middle of the club.

“Filippo?” Elia can barely speak with a dry mouth and the weight of hundred kisses on his lips. The fact that he also feels like his head is stuffed with cotton and his blood is running everywhere inside his body but to his brain isn’t helping him at all with trying to communicate to Filippo that he needs to go outside for a little while.

To take a break. To take the time to readjust not only what’s on his trousers but also the thoughts that are running in his mind in an endless circle of _I want you_ and _I want to be alone with you_ , but also the occasional _how much longer can it all last?_.

Filippo didn’t hear him, or else he didn’t understand the intention behind the word because Elia feels his hand on his back, pulling him back towards himself, sending him down a hole Elia fought so hard to get out of.

“Hey.” Elia smiles at Filippo who’s looking at him dazed, the disco lights lighting up his face in bits. He brings his hand to the boy’s face and moves a wild strand of hair that had fallen on the shiny sweaty forehead. “I need to go outside for a little.”

Filippo’s forehead scrunches up in a worried look. “Everything good?”

“Yes, yes. I just need a breath of fresh air.”

“I’m coming with you.” He takes him by the hand before making his way through the crowd, steering them clear of the waves of bodies on the dance floor.

Elia trips on the door that brings outside, but Filippo is holding him up with his strong hands before he can lose his balance completely.

“Be careful.” He lets out a laugh and stabilized Elia’s entire body with his own. He might be drunk as well, but he’s definitely more stable.

Elia hopes that an unspoken ‘thank you’ can be read in his eyes when he turns them towards Filippo’s before falling into the boy’s.

Maybe after all exiting the bar isn’t the solution he was looking for. Elia forces himself to take a deep breath and as he inhales the fresh air of the night that slightly smells of gas and frying oil, he asks himself with his mind clouded by alcohol if there is really a way to run from the way Filippo makes him feel.

“Do you feel better?” Filippo’s hand on his cheek is warm and Elia just wishes he could close his eyes and fall into the touch.

“I was already fine before, I told you.” He knows that he’s probably not making any sense and that he’s not coherent but he doesn’t want Filippo to worry. “When we were dancing and I told you I had to- I wanted to go out… I didn’t tell you I was feeling bad. It’s because I _wasn’t_ feeling bad.” _Perfect. For sure that made sense and now Filippo gets it._ Filippo’s mildly confused expression confirms that he didn’t made himself clear.

“Okay… it just felt weird, you…wanting to go outside so suddenly.” Filippo looks at him attentively. “So I thought that you felt bad.” He finishes talking and slowly retracts his hand from Elia’s face, fingertips gazing quickly along his neck. _Don’t go, come back here._ The shiver from the contact crossed his body from the back of his head to his feet. Elia hugs his arms.

“Are you cold?” Elia notices that Filippo is ready to take the coat he’s tied around his waist and offer it to him.

“You always fucking take care of me.” He mumbles instead of answering.

Filippo laughs and rubs his hands along Elia’s arms, as if he wants to warm him up, or maybe just to confirm that he really has a heart of gold that Elia doesn’t deserve.

A bottomless sadness overcomes him all of a sudden and Elia feels tears spring to his eyes, quick and silent. He bats his eyelids and one falls on his face.

“Hey…” Filippo’s voice is delicate and barely audible. “Are you a sad drunk tonight?”

Elia tries to laugh but he only manages to smile sadly a fake smile that makes more tears fall from his eyes.

“I don’t deserve you.” He feels like since the tears are out, concrete proof of the turmoil he feels inside, there’s no reason to keep holding in what he’s been carrying around for weeks. _I don’t deserve you_. A claim he has made bigger and bigger in his head, turning it into an absolute and indesputable truth that weighed him down for weeks and weeks.

“What?” Elia doesn’t dare to look at Filippo. He stares at the ground and imagines the tears falling on the black cement that he can’t really see and he imagines them dirtying it with salt.

“Eli, what the fuck are you talking about? What makes you think- why are you telling me this now?” He feels Filippo’s hands on his hips but he keeps his eyes fixed on the sidewalk, the last shelter in which he can trust.

“Elia, what do you mean you don’t deserve me?”

_It means I don’t deserve you. It means that you are brave and I am scared. That you are out and you speak loudly and that I don’t know who I am and even if I sometimes I am loud as well with my friends and I act like I know the world I am actually insecure. That you are ready to hold hands with a boy in the streets although you know somebody might want to beat you up. That I don’t think I’ve ever had to live something as scary._

“In which way? Because I can assure you right now without thinking twice about it that it isn’t true.” Elia feels himself being shaken slowly. “Look at me, Eli.”

Why is it so hard to lift his head and to stop staring at the ground? Why does everything suddenly seem so heavy and unbearable?

Elia knows that he could never deny a wish to Filippo, so he makes the effort of lifting his eyes. And when he finally pries his eyes from the dark ground, he finds Filippo’s waiting him like always.

“There you go.” A crooked smile is painted on the tense boy’s face. “Listen to me. I don’t know from where you get the idea that you don’t deserve me, but I can assure you that it’s a crazy idea. I don’t know how much of what you are saying is due to the alcohol so maybe for tonight we don’t talk about it. I will get you back home and we’ll talk tomorrow when we’re sober.”

Elia feels like his chest is lighter now that he’s staring into Filippo’s eyes, now that the need to confess and let go of this fear of his that weighed his soul is gone he got back some lightness in his breathing. Even the tears don’t threaten to fall down and the dark of the sidewalk doesn’t look like the best place to fix his eyes upon anymore, and neither it looks like the shelter he needed just minutes ago. Elia is calmer now and he feels like he can go back to the evening.

“Please kiss me.” He manages to ask, thanks to the safe feeling that Filippo’s sincere eyes ignite in him.

Filippo takes his head into his hands and he draws near slowly before he lays a kiss with closed lips on his. Foreheads touching, hands holding each other, Elia breathes and tries to stabilize everything that’s spinning inside of him. To put everything back in his place, every emotion born from the alcohol and mixed with the evening’s ones, but also the doubts and the fears from a lifetime. They all must go back to their places. Maybe he won’t be able to tiding them up all tonight, but for sure he’ll be able to do it tomorrow. Elia realized that now he just needs a bed and to feel safe, of warmth and concreteness.

And since he’s decided that for tonight he will only focus on what his heart is telling him and leave the doubts aside, he realizes that he’s about to ask a favour to Filippo before his brain stops him from opening his mouth.

“Can I sleep at yours tonight?” he whispers in the space between their lips.

Elia never slept with Filippo, he never slept with anybody he was seeing to be honest, but he always asked himself how it would feel to sleep in the arms of somebody and right now it feels like the right thing to ask to feel good, the only thing that will help him go through the night.

“Of course you can.” Filippo moves back an inch to look at him better. “I didn’t think you would ever ask.”

Elia smiles. “Just to be on the same page…I really mean sleep as _sleep_.”

“As if you’re in the state to do anything else.” Filippo pulls away and pushes him a bit. “Do you take me for somebody who takes advantage of drunk boys? Come here, come on.” Elia takes Filippo’s extended arm under his own and they start walking towards the building where Filippo lives.

When they get home, they are greeted by the silence inhabiting the apartment. Eleonora is still in England and the flat is immerged in a semi-quietness, semi-darkness of the night of a summer that’s coming to an end. Not too noisy and neither too bright. Filippo guides him towards the bedroom and Elia lets himself fall on his bed as soon as he sees he can do it without ending up on the floor because he miscalculated his aim. After some instants Filippo is offering him an over worn t-shirt. “Maybe it’s better if you take off at least your shoes. And if you want you can wear this.”

Elia forces himself to get up and takes off his shoes and trousers, but after this effort he feels like his brain is exhausted and he doesn’t know how to go on from there.

“You made a great progress but the t-shirt’s still missing.” Filippo’s tone lets him know he’s joking as he stares at Elia sitting on the bed with a lost look on his face, wearing nothing but a sweaty t-shirt and his underwear. Elia imagines to be Filippo and to be looking at himself in the state he’s in and a little laugh escapes him from thinking of this mental picture.

“Wait, I can help you.” Filippo comes closer and motions to him to lift his arms. Elia humours him and the boy takes his shirt off for him. “Congrats, it almost looks like you are two and a half years old.”

“You’re funny.”

Elia knows that in any other moment the situation he’s in would have sent him into defibrillation, if not directly into cardiac arrest. _I’m at the house of the guy I like. In his bed. In underwear. With him undressing me._ But at the moment he’s too tired and too fucked up from the alcohol to get anxious about it, luckily. And after all he had chosen half a hour ago that he would only trust his heart and not his brain tonight. Which means there’s no space for any overthinking and any anxiety.

“There we go… now put up your arms that I will slip this on.” Filippo extends his hands holding the clean t-shirt over Elia’s head. “Right, perfect. Are you able to get the sleeves?”

“I’m two and I half, what do you think?” Elia finishes putting on the shirt and he lets himself on the matrass, worn off. He breathes in deeply the perfume of the bedsheet. Everything is _almost_ perfect.

“I know tonight I’ve already expressed two wishes, which means I still have one left.” Filippo lifts his eyebrow with amusement from where he’s looking down on him, standing beside the bed. “Please come here.” Elia says slapping his hand on the covers beside him.

Filippo gets rid of his clothes and slips under the covers in a heartbeat and as soon as he’s lying down Elia turns towards him.

“Now that you used all your wishes you can finally sleep.” Filippo looks at him with a smile.

“To be honest, I have another one.”

“Oh yeah? ‘Mr. Three Wishes’ has a fourth one?” Filippo says jokingly and for a moment Elia thinks about chickening out, but it wouldn’t make sense. Not when he’s so close to get what would make him really happy. “What would it be, let’s hear it.” Filippo moves his hand close to Elia’s face, without touching it but close enough for the warmth to radiate on Elia’s cheek.

“I want us to sleep hugging each other.”

And this time it’s not a question, but a request. Sure that he can make it and sure to deserve to say it out loud. Elia feels happy after he says it, but not as happy as he is when he feels Filippo’s arms holding him. Locking him in a hug that feels like certitude, of warmth, of something that for sure will remain once the day light will come up with the sun.


	5. In your arms I found myself

When Elia opens his eyes, he sees a strip of sun on the matrass and on the light, lies a hand. On his back Elia feels the warmth radiating from Filippo’s body and the boy’s soft breath that tells him that he’s still sleeping. Elia closes his eyes and he curls up a little bit tighter, a little bit closer to Filippo’s chest, slowly, so that he won’t wake him up. But the movement is enough to wake up the other boy that retracts his arm from where it laid on Elia’s shoulder to rub the sleep off his face.

“Good morning.” Elia turns to watch the boy. Face to face, lying in a bed that’s like an island in the sea, a scrap of light that seems to be there just for them, to tell them that he new day will offer them only good things. Or maybe the sun was spying on them and it decides that it liked to see them hugging, so it sent a sunshine ray as a silent blessing. Filippo is looking at him with calm eyes.

“G’day. Are you hungover?” he asks with a yawn.

Elia laughs because probably he could be feeling awful and he wouldn’t even notice, busy as he is admiring their little universe and feeling in peace with himself and the world.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Good.” Filippo smiles at him and Elia wants to get up and scream, or maybe just take his face into his hands and kiss him. “Yesterday I wasn’t even sure that we could get through the night without you throwing up on me.” Filippo smiles and Elia decides that what he’s feeling is definitely a mix between wanting to scream and wanting to kiss him.

“Asshole.” He says. _You make me feel so good_ , he wants to scream.

“It’s just that after last night’s scene I had my doubts about us making it out of this night alive.” And Elia, even if he kept in a corner of his heart the fear that tormented his soul and that came out in what Filippo just called a ‘scene’, he decides to let go. Even in the sunlight, to let himself believe that he deserves what he’s feeling. To believe Filippo’s words that stayed with him, like words carved into stone.

“Oh you did? Then why did you agree to sleep hugging me?” His heart beats quickly in his chest and Elia doesn’t know how to calm it down. Maybe there isn’t even a way to calm down and trying to do it is useless. Letting himself go in the moment means forcing himself to trust, trust that his heart will keep on beating and that his mouth will know what to say.

Filippo sighs. “Do you want the honest answer?”

“Yes.” Elia stares into his eyes and in them he only reads honesty.

“Because I was asked by this boy that I’m seeing and that I like, but with whom I never had the chance to clear up some stuff. Stuff about our relationship, about us two. And when the boy asked me to hug him while we slept, after we had gone out together an after we had drunk and we had fun, after he suddenly started to say things that didn’t make sense like that he didn’t deserve me, I decided to do it because I understood that maybe what I felt was mutual and that I wouldn’t be hurt waking up in the morning. Because I understood that he would have stayed in bed with me and I could have held him once we woke up.”

When Filippo stops talking, Elia brings his face closer to the other boy’s. He draws near until he can rest his forehead against and lay a hand on his cheek. Then he closes his eyes.

“So why are you still not holding the boy?”

And he hopes that this will suffice to answer everything that Filippo has asked him without really asking him any question. _Are we on the same page? Do you feel something for me as well? Is it okay if we lie here hugging?_

Filippo detaches his forehead from Elia’s own to hug him, Elias’s face pressed against his chest. For a while they stay like that, without moving, not even a little bit. Their lives paused for a while in an instant that allows them to find each other in a hug.

Elia listens to the boy’s heartbeats and he thinks about how happy he is. Simply, foolishly and incredibly happy. In his own heartbeat he can’t feel any trace of hastiness.

They start to move again when Filippo starts to lightly stroke his hair.

“Eli?”

“Mmh?” Elia lifts his face from where it was hidden between the folds of Filippo’s shirt and sees that the boy is staring at him like only he is able to, and as always Elia’s stare locks into the other boy’s.

Elia sees Filippo’s smile reflected in his eyes before he closes them and quickly strokes his nose on Filippo’s before kissing him.

They kiss slowly, light up by the sun and warmed by their happiness, with a calmness characteristic of those who know they have all the time in the world.


End file.
